Bhubaneswar,Dec.21: The Odisha ST & SC Development Department here today released a series of communication materials for teachers and students under the Life Skills Education (LSE) Programme.

To ensure the wellbeing of students in residential schools, the resource materials were released on the concluding day of “Sargiful”-2018, the three days students’ fest, held at Bhubaneswar from December 19 to 21.

The Life Skills education programme is implemented by the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Research and Training Institute, Department of ST and SC Development in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI).

The APPI’s collaboration is part of their support to the State under the overall ambit of the Odisha Nutrition Action Plan.

Under the Life Skills programme that is implemented in residential schools across the State, teachers are trained to transact life skills sessions and trained students act as peer educators to organise extracurricular activities on themes assigned for the month.

The programme focusses on enhancing knowledge and promoting responsible behavior among adolescents, besides creating an enabling environment in residential schools.

Series of animated videos, multimedia packages, workbooks, charts, frequently asked questions on adolescence and interactive games, covering topics of health, nutrition, and wellbeing were released at the event.

Professor A. B Otta Director of SCSTRTI mentioned that the material released are useful tools to make learning joyful and to help students internalize messages to make the right choices in their lives.

Interesting programmes such as meet the personality, where children interacted with young boys and girls excelling in sports and art, skit performance on various themes by participating students and prize distribution marked the concluding day of the three-day fest.